Erica's Stitches

The 2008 Region Seminar was in Denver and the theme was Colorado Collage.  I had been seeing numerous articles about quilted postcards and ATC (Artist Trading Cards) and collect old postcards from Colorado so that made the decision on what to do for this Prospectors an easy decision. I set myself a few rules: 1) It's OK to leave some canvas empty 2) Don't worry about raw edges 3) Don't repeat techniques And I set out to have some fun and use up some of the supplies I've been collecting.  I think this was my favorite Prospectors because I got to be really creative.  I started by sketching the designs and painting the canvas (so it wasn't just white canvas showing through) The first postcard was Colorado and featured Columbines.  I had some indigo dyed linen which formed the blue part of the flower.  It was very fragile and had to be couched down.   The rest of the petals are some white wool felt.  For the words I couched down some red wool (each of the nam

I was shopping in an area of town I'm not in that often and discovered a Salvation Army store that wasn't there the last time I drove by.  Naturally, I had to stop and see what I could scrounge up. I hit the jackpot in the frame section.  I often stop here because you can find great frames really cheap.  A lot of times they are of higher quality than newer frames, but you have to dig and be prepared to discard the framed item inside.  I bought 11 frames sized 5 x 7 and smaller.  One came with needlepoint and the another with crewel.   The remaining 9 where empty.   At 50 cents each I couldn't pass up the discarded needlework. Even though the colors are somewhat dated and the work may be sloppy in parts they are works of beauty that somebody at sometime put effort into and I had to rescue them.  The finishing is rather crude on both of them.  Sometimes I do my own hack job of framing but never like this.  The needlepoint is nicely laced but then it was duct taped int

Here's one of my favorite quilts. The blocks are all made from the same pattern, but by varying the placement of colors and values the appear entirely different. When I was trying to come up with a Prospector's idea I decided that I wanted to combine quilting and cross-stitch. I started with the same pattern and played with the colors in a different way.  I don't think this design has lived up to it's full potential and I have some ideas for re-doing it.  That's something for the future.

When I went out of town last week it was beginning to feel like fall.  The goldenrod and aster had been blooming for weeks but it still felt summerlike.  Now that I'm back fall is definitely here.  I grabbed my camera and walked around the yard catching the colors of fall. Fall and spring are my favorite times of the year.  I love watching the birth and death of the forest.  The aspen is still green but everything else is turning gold and brown and drying out.

For this prospectors, I tried something different.  I had beeen working on a class, of various techniques, where my work was being evaluated.  The front needed to look as nice as the back and the stitches needed to be properly lined up. In response to that I went totally free form.  My cross stitches cross every which way.  Sometimes I go over 2, 3 or 4 threads depending on how I feel.  I picked and changed colors at random, keeping each window in it's own color scheme, with a touch of contrast. I added a quick quilted border and was done. This has become one of my favorite methods of designing - picking up needle and floss and stitching to see what happens.  It doesn't work all the time and I have come up with some different designs this way.

It's time to start my first design as part of the Prospector's challenge. The first decision is what to design.  I've always liked wildflowers, especially those from the the Rocky Mountains.  When I was growing up we'd trek from Ohio to Colorado and Wyoming.  For entertainment I was given a flower identification book.  I would research in the car and then look for some of the exotic flowers when we arrived at our campsite.  So, flowers would be my subject.  And band samplers, which consist of bands of patterns, where popular so that was my format. That's the easy part.  So, I set out with graph paper to come up with the flowers for the bands.  The Columbine that I stitched years ago was bigger than life.  Each flower was maybe 20 x 20 or 30 x 30 squares.  That's alot of detail to make up one flower. I was making smaller flowers, some remembered from those early trips - harebell, fireweed and indian paintbrush.  Other flowers where chosen for the colors or 

Life continued to be busy.  Every once in a while I'd go to the chain store and buy a kit that appealed to me.  I'd finish it and pick up another one.  I wasn't always quick but it was a fun hobby to pick up every once in a while.  I didn't let anyone know I cross-stitched as I didn't think anyone else did (actually, people must cross-stitch, because otherwise the stores wouldn't carry the pattens, but I didn't think of that at the time). I moved to Colorado Springs in 1994 and with most of my stuff in storage and living in a tiny apartment I needed a project and found a Columbine pattern to stitch on.  I also discovered a cross stitch store down the street from the apartment.  They had alot more patterns than the chain store and the patterns where so much better.  They had more than just aida cloth and DMC floss.  It was a whole new world.  They also had a group that met Thursday night which I joined.  From there I discovered EGA, the Embroiderers' Gu

For September 2009 I'm a featured New Designer on http://www.patternsonline.com/ .  It's been an interesting journey getting there. This blog will go over how I got here and how I go about designing. I want to design patterns that people will want to stitch. Hopefully I'll get help and feedback with this blog. I have a little more history to go and then I can get down to the fun part - my designs.